IRAQ: Resistance attacks on British troops escalating

The British military announced on May 29 that two of its soldiers had died in a roadside bomb attack in the southern Iraqi city of Basra, bringing the total number of British military fatalities in May to nine. "The deaths are a clear sign that rebel attacks are escalating in Basra, which was seen as relatively safe in the early months after the [March 2003] invasion", the Glasgow Daily Record reported. Two other British soldiers died in a roadside bomb attack just north of the city earlier in the month, and five were killed when a helicopter was brought down in an apparent rocket attack. Britain has 8000 soldiers in Iraq, based in the country's Shiite-dominated south. As of May 29, 117 British troops had died in Iraq since the invasion. The May 26 Chicago Tribune reported that "American military officials in Baghdad often point to the relatively low number of attacks against British soldiers in southern Iraq as proof that much of the country is stable". However, the May 29 British Independent daily reported that British forces have been attacked by Iraqi resistance fighters nearly 60 times a month since the start of the year. The new figure, covering the first four months of 2006, is a 26% increase on 2005. "The only thing that I've seen get any better here is the weapons they're using against us", Basra-based Corporal Patrick Owens told the Tribune.

From Green Left Weekly, June 7, 2006.

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From GLW issue 670